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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001342">For all the red in the world, I'd paint you gold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahqauup/pseuds/Yahqauup'>Yahqauup</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderfluid Rowan Khanna, Other, POV Second Person, Present Tense</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:42:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001342</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yahqauup/pseuds/Yahqauup</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where you see in black and white until you make eye contact with your soulmate, it never occurs to you to start looking for colour, not before you find your brother.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Copper/Player Character (Hogwarts Mystery), Jacob &amp; Player Character (Hogwarts Mystery)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>For all the red in the world, I'd paint you gold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I started to realize half-way writing this that the player's gender is never brought up. This was not made expressly. But it is truth nevertheless, so the player's gender is left to the interpretation of the reader.<br/>However, the house of the  player is specified as Gryffindor. That's the important part.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing about Ben is that he never looks at people's faces. Not even when he talks to them, and you —you have never had a problem with that.</p>
<hr/><p>Some kid you will later learn is called Ismelda Murk comments that the different colours to differentiate the houses are stupid when three-quarters of Hogwarts cannot actually differentiate them. You do not disagree with her, but, well, you’re more worried about other things.</p>
<hr/><p>He looks at your feet when he talks to you. It is one of these late afternoons when you have nothing to do, the common room always gets quiet before everybody starts making noise and talking all at once —it is a loud house, Gryffindor, and you feel at home there, between people that share something with you, be it a belief or a personality trait or maybe only the colour of your scarfs.</p><p>He sits in an armchair far from the fireplace. He must be scared, you believe, by the way he looks at it from time to time, as if he does not want to see it but he does not trust it out of his sight.</p><p>You approached him because you wanted to ask something about a Charms essay, but the way he got scared, the jump noticeable on his shoulders, his too open eyes, everything makes you pause for a moment, looking for something in his face that gives you an answer. Not to the question you were about to ask, but to something more primal that feels like the moment you are about to enter a vault —like a wish come true, like you expect Jacob to be there, reading one of his too-thick books and he will look up to smile at you, like he always did.</p><p>You compare them before you realize what you are doing, because there is some part of your brain that is always thinking about your brother and you do not know and do not want to stop it; Jacob always sat cross-legged, a book precariously balanced on his leg that would fall if you tried hard enough, and leaned his head on his fist or his arm, it used to seem as if he would fall on his side, like whatever was that held together every part of him was too unreliable, but Ben is hard lines even with his baby fat, and if he breaks down it will be because of pressure, not because he is shaky, even when he shakes from fear, he holds his book open with both hands, on his legs with both feet touching the floor.</p><p>The difference makes you stagger, and you think that someday you will surely stop searching for things that are not there (because <em>he will be there</em>, you tell yourself).</p><p>You ask him about the book, because it feels wrong to ask for help right now, so he tells you he is reading it for a Transfiguration essay he is having problems with and you almost expect him to ask you for help, just as you were about to do, but he is looking at your feet and you feel conscious.</p><p>The carpet is always warm, so you are not even wearing shoes, and you wonder if it is just some place to look to avoid looking at you or if he thinks it is weird.</p>
<hr/><p>He stares blankly, too afraid to form a complete sentence and you wait, ever so patiently, for him to breath, for him to talk and tell you what you want to hear or what he wants to tell you and you feel too young for this. For everything.</p><p>He stutters; you smile, encouragingly. You wonder how someone so coward can be so brave. Or how someone so brave can be a coward. There is something about bravery coming in face of fear, not in absence of it, but you are not sure how to reconcile the knowledge with reality, so you wonder about your brother instead.</p><p>Rowan gets tired of him easily, and that is not something you understand. You have waited for your brother, you have waited for the next vault and you can wait for Ben to talk.</p><p>You do not tell them this, you let them be themselves instead and stand by him as much as you can. There is some doubt you do not want to admit, about Ben, about Rowan, about things you do not care about and things you care too much and sometimes it feels like the caste is not big enough for everything that has happened. For every place in it that you have nbt yet discovered, there is another one you have walked by a million times. Some places are engraved in your memory, the fire torch next to the hall that always goes out and the path were Fang always disappears after you throw a branch for him. You wonder what will become of you once you leave Hogwarts behind and everything becomes memories. If your friends will become memories too (as Jacob has).</p><p>You breathe loudly, ignore Rowan (you love them too much to let them become a memory) and, for the first time, you wish Ben would look at you when you talk.</p>
<hr/><p>You choose him, because you have seen how he is when he is afraid (always) and how he fights when things get scary and how he never backs down when he says he wants to. You choose him because he seems like a smart move and you want to find your brother more than you have ever wanted anything in your life.</p><p>(Years later, you will confess to him that you do not think you will ever want something as much as you wanted to find Jacob during these years, and he will give you a trembling smile full of memories and tell you that it is okay, because that is what you will have always told him and he will have started to believe you.)</p><p>''I can't do it,'' he says.</p><p>''You can do it, Ben.''</p><p>Sometimes it feels like you know him better than himself. Rowan nods next to you and you let yourself think that they are agreeing with your thoughts. Then, they show their lack of confidence and you are hurt. They are your best friend and Ben has zero confidence in everything, but Rowan is not like that, Rowan is supposed to believe in you as you believe in them and you believe in them too much start doubting about their intentions. You will not let yourself. And you will not let them doubt you.</p><p>You put your hand in Ben shoulder (Jacob used to do this, you remember) and guide him through the exit. You smile at Rowan, sure of yourself and you almost swear you hear Ben whisper ''here we go'' before letting out a sigh.</p>
<hr/><p>He looks at your nose (it hurts from when Merula hit you with a broom in Flying class), he looks at your tie (Charlie, drunk on non-alcoholic butterbeer murmurs something about all of you matching and laughs against his brother's arm, Bill pats his head and the jealously turns the beer bitter on your tongue but you smile nevertheless when everyone laughs at them), he looks at your hands when your fingers hold your brother’s wand too tightly and he will not say anything, you know, because he never does and you smile, smile, smile and smile and you both decide to leave the common room and the loud sounds and the loud colours and go to the library where the only loud sounds are Tonks falling from her chair and Madan Pince telling people to be quiet.</p><p>He turns to give you his Potions essay to look over and —well, it comes as a surprise. Not because you thought it was impossible or improbable or because you thought it would never happen or because who he is and who you are but because you had not thought about it.</p>
<hr/><p>First, you think about how you are going to use it. The colours that fit in the world much better than you thought they would. You wonder about the shade of ice (you have heard it as blue and white and colourless) and if the vault in the Forest would clash as much as the red against the black of your robes. Maybe Jacob found his soulmate at Hogwarts and never told you, there are so many things that your brother never told you.</p><p>Ben’s scarf is a bright red too (those are the colours of Gryffindor, the same that your brother wore) and when you think to look again, he is still looking at you.</p><p>It means something, you know, have heard about it (you remember Emily Tyler and Bill and all the things that it can not mean), but this is Ben and this is you and there is something about the fact that you have never looked each other in the eyes for years. There is something about a lot of things.</p><p>‘’I don’t know what to do…’’ you say, because it is the truth, because you have always been honest with Ben, because he is your friend and he deserves nothing less.</p><p>‘’I don’t know what to say…’’ he adds, a little smile. This is your friend, always worried, always thinking about the next danger. This is your friend, you repeat to yourself.  ‘’This is somewhat scary.’’</p>
<hr/><p>You love him, you admit that. And he loves you, he admits that. Still, you have things to do, brothers to find, vaults to research, friends to help and detentions to attend.</p><p>This is one thing better left for later.</p>
<hr/><p>You are the scared one, for once. It is not that you have not been afraid before, it is that you do not know what to do about it. A part of your mind screams that you are a Gryffindor, that you are brave, that you have seen worse and fought more danger, but there is something about fear that paralyzes, and you knew it before, seen it happen before, but you did not know that fear could be like this. For this. You want to say you refuse to be afraid because of your brother, but you do not want to lie to yourself.</p><p>''I can't do it,'' you murmur, almost to know how it feels.</p><p>He holds you with the strength you always knew he had. The floor is cold under your knees, but he has always been warm and his fingers almost burn where they touch you. Your brother was warm too, his hugs specially comforting in the dead of winter, but they did not burn like this.</p><p>This is the end of the line, the last step of your journey, and it is terrifying, everything about it, from the vault to your brother to the mysteries to the truth. It has been a long time since you learned to be afraid of the truth, yet you are not used to it.</p><p>Rowan whispers your name, their own way to support you, their hand in your shoulder, and next to them, all around you, Ben sounds undoubtably sure when he says:</p><p>''Yes, you can.''</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I have yet to decide if this is a stand alone or if I can write more stories about the player  x some character? Or if they should all be soulmates AU? Choices to make...</p></blockquote></div></div>
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